Competing Against Giants

ConvertKit will be releasing paid newsletters soon. I'm bringing attention to this because I want others to know how I think about competition.

Courtland and Rob Walling recently discussed choosing between customer pain or competitor pain.

Competitor pain is when there is an established market, and you are competing on features, price, design, brand, etc.

Customer pain is when the market is slower to adopt tech, and you need to help them get acquainted with new tools.

With Memberlist, I'm choosing competitor pain. I realize there are several big competitors out there.

I want to focus on the features, design, and business model (pricing) that the competitors won't do.

For example, check out what Derrick Riemer is doing at SavvyCal. He's competing against Calendly—a giant in the scheduling market. But he's finding the nuance in scheduling and building features that wow his customers!

While I'm not excited about ConvertKit entering the market, they confirm a core assumption about Memberlist—people are looking for alternatives to Substack.

I believe the market for newsletters will continue to grow and evolve. My hunch is Andreessen Horowitz is betting on Substack, not because of the tech, but because of the size and growth of the market.

One of the most significant factors in finding my next idea was finding a good wave to ride.

When I saw Kevin's the idea for a Substack competitor, it clicked.

I want to build relationships with creators and serve them through Indie Creators.

And I want to use their feedback to create better (more nuanced) tools for them to monetize their products.

The features and pricing of Memberlist will change over the years as the market evolves.

Don't get me wrong. I don't love competition. In fact, it scares me to go up against giants with tons of resources.

But I like what I see in the market, and I'm excited to play the game for as long as I can.